


our beloved monster

by that_dirty_bastard



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/M, Incest, M/M, Multi, Sexual Tension, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7823575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_dirty_bastard/pseuds/that_dirty_bastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Rick sits up fast, one hand clapped reflexively over his mouth, his eyes bugged wide with dawning comprehension.  Morty watches as he gingerly feels around with his fingertips, prodding at the gums, running over the smooth edges of the incisors, and then tracing those elongated canines down to press the pads of his thumbs against the pointy ends.  Then he turns to Morty with the biggest, stupidest grin on his face.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Ho-hoooooly shit, Morty, check it out!  I’m Vampire Riiiiiiick!”</i>
</p><p>an au where rick is turned into a vampire shortly after the events of ‘big trouble in little sanchez.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bad karma

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be an ongoing series so buckle up!
> 
> chapter title is taken from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NevmJ2uZ-rQ)
> 
> all pairings listed in the header are endgame.

-

-

-

Whatever the hell happened on Nuptia IV, it accomplished at least this much: Jerry and Beth have gone out to a fancy dinner on a Friday night for what feels like the first time in _years_. There’s no way the truce will last— Rick and Summer both predict a matter of days, while Morty holds out hope for at least a week— but for tonight, at least, they have the house to themselves. Rick hooks up the cable box, they find a top twenty episode countdown for Ball Fondlers, and order a shitload of pizza. Twenty minutes or so before the scheduled delivery, Rick and Summer make elaborate individual excuses to leave the room; Morty knows they’re sneaking off to get high together. Summer thinks he’s too young to smoke and Rick is too lazy to intervene on his behalf. Morty takes a few swigs from Rick’s flask while they’re gone. 

Rick and Summer come back laughing, and it makes Morty laugh, too, because goddamn do they always have a good time when his parents aren’t around. They’re down to the top three episodes of the countdown and there’s been a heated ongoing debate over predictions for the number one pick— Rick and Morty firmly believe they’ll give the top slot to a classic crowd-pleaser, while Summer is convinced it’ll be the controversial episode with the infamous triple death scene. It takes four rings of the doorbell before any of them notice it. 

“Not it,” Summer says quickly. 

“No-eugh-ot it,” Rick slurs, right on her heels. 

“Not— aww,” Morty whines. “No fair.” 

-

“You can’t fight destiny, Morty,” Rick mumbles, eyes glued to the TV screen. “Go fetch.” 

Morty would grumble, only he doesn’t want to miss anything that’s happening on the TV. He creeps backwards through the front hall, straining to keep his eyes on the screen, fumbling behind him as he gets close enough to the door handle. When he finally yanks it open, he spares the delivery guy a hasty glance before reverting back to the show. 

“Here,” he mumbles, holding the cash out, aimless. “Uh, keep the change.”

The money lifts out of his grip. Good. The end credits are rolling on the previous episode, the number three pick. There’s really only two episodes left in the canon that would be contenders for the top slots, so if Summer’s episode starts next, it means that he and Rick are right. He holds his arms out blindly, waiting for the pizza. Credits are over— production logos— shit, the delivery guy is still talking—

“...actually a lot of stuff here, do you want me to just bring it in and put it on the table?”

“Sure,” Morty says absently. “Come on in.” 

And then a huge black shape smashes past him and into the living room. 

For a split-second Morty just stands there, staring stupidly at the pizza scattered all over the floor. Then he yells “ _oh shit!_ ” and scrambles after it. 

By the time he gets there, it’s already got Rick by the neck. 

Summer’s standing on the couch, screaming and kicking at whatever-it-is. Rick’s on his feet and bellowing, one half of it coherent curse words and the other half incoherent but also probably curse words, as he staggers in a half-circle in an attempt to throw off his attacker. He’s putting up a hell of a fight, but whatever-it-is has wrapped powerful, dark arms around his chest, locking them together while whatever-it-is sinks its teeth deeper into Rick’s throat. Wait a minute— _whatever-it-is_ — it’s a vampire, _duh._

“Hey!” Morty yells.

Those ghastly eyes roll over in his direction. Morty has zero plan. On impulse, he grabs and throws the first thing within reach; the TV remote. It bounces harmlessly off the vampire’s forehead, the back panel popping loose and the batteries scattering all over the floor. 

“ _Ugh,_ ” Rick rolls his eyes and coughs out a mouthful of blood. “Real nice, Morty.”

“At least I’m trying!” Morty snaps, flustered. 

“Grandpa Rick,” Summer yells. “What do we do?”

Rick doesn’t answer. He’s too busy slamming around the living room, bashing everything off the shelves as he searches for a weapon, still trying to wrench the vampire off of him as he goes. Morty’s looking, too, but suddenly every single thing in his immediate vicinity is completely harmless; pillows, picture frames, breakable knickknacks. Summer, meanwhile, jumps over the back of the couch and dives into the kitchen to get something actually useful, which Morty notes with dismay will probably get her a lot of credit from Rick when this is over. 

Then, on a particularly forceful lunge, Rick slams into the board game shelf and goes straight for the coffee mug containing the pencil stash. Fumbling past the pathetic little Scattergories mini-golf pencils, he gets his hands on a full-size model from Wise or Otherwise. Summer appears in the kitchen doorway with a paring knife just as Rick jams the pencil back over his shoulder, burying it up to the eraser in the vampire’s throat. When he yanks it out again it brings a glistening ribbon of blood with it. 

“Jackpot, motherfucker,” Rick grunts. 

“Ow!” the vampire whines. “Fucking— _ow!_ ”

There’s a weird, awkward scuffle where it’s kind of hard to tell who’s restraining who anymore, because Rick is supposed to be trying to get away from the vampire but for a second there it looks like the vampire is trying to get away from Rick. Morty can see Rick’s tongue sticking out, straining towards the puncture he just made, fighting to get a taste. Then the combatants finally separate, the vampire scrambling over to one corner while Rick lurches over to grab the edge of the nearest bookshelf, bracing himself against collapse. The vampire touches his hand to his neck, checks his fingertips, touches his neck, checks his fingertips again, then gives Rick a look of incredulous disgust. 

“You stabbed me with a _pencil?_ ” he hisses, outraged. “Not cool, man! I could have one of those janky graphite tattoos for the rest of my life! My _immortal_ life! Not cool!” 

“Blow me,” Rick splutters, one hand clamped over his spurting throat wound. 

“No thanks,” the vampire spits derisively. “I’m full. And yeah, by the way, that was for Coach Feratu, asshole.”

“Ohhhh, shit,” Morty mumbles, and Summer clutches her paring knife because she realizes the exact same thing at the exact same time: they were _totally_ in on that. 

“Relax, relax,” the vampire holds up his long, pale hands in a pacifying gesture. “You’re safe. I’m not authorized to drink the blood of virgins.” He looks back at Rick. “Oh, and FYI? You taste like shit.”

Then, in the same chaotic black blur that smashed into their living room, he whirls into motion and zooms back out the front door, leaving them all in peace to watch Rick bleed to death. 

Morty looks at Summer, his voice dripping with disbelief. 

“You’re a virgin?” 

“Huh,” Summer shrugs. “I guess oral really _doesn’t_ count.” 

“Don’t kid yourself, Summer,” Rick slurs. “Th-th-that’s just some pathetically outdated pseudo-Victorian _bullshit_. Oral t-totally… counts…”

Then his knees give out and he crashes straight to the floor. 

“Rick!”

Morty and Summer practically crash into each other in their haste to get to him, crouching on either side of his supine form as he gasps and gurgles on the carpet. Rick looks like he’s got about a Capri Sun pouch’s worth of blood left in his entire body, his skin the color of chalk, his chest barely shivering with the last vestiges of breath. Summer’s hands hover helplessly over him, her instinct to help him at war with her total inability to do anything. Morty just stares at the huge, ragged hole in the side of Rick’s neck, the stereotypical puncture marks torn wide open during the struggle, ugly and raw and red. 

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God,” Summer’s eyes are filled with tears. “Grandpa Rick… I don’t… I don’t know what to do…”

Rick looks past her, his glassy stare fixed right on Morty’s stunned face.

“Sssssstay…” Rick wheezes. “Stay with me… Mmmmmorty…”

“We’re here, Rick,” Summer says, clutching at his hand. “We’ll stay with you.”

Funny how Morty sometimes forgets that he knows Rick better than anyone else in this family. Only he seems to know that Rick would never be so sentimental as to beg for someone to hold his hand while his worthless mortal husk expired. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want Morty to stay with him now. He wants Morty to stay with him later. _After._

Morty reaches down to take hold of Rick’s blood-slicked chin, directing Rick’s fading eyes towards his own.

“H-hey,” he says weakly. “It’s okay. I’ll be here.” 

He can feel Rick’s head twitch against his palm; the barest hint of a nod. Rick heard him. 

Then Rick’s eyes roll over white and his skull thunks down to the floor.

And then comes the death rattle. It’s a bad one, throttled with blood, the sound thick and messy and prolonged. Summer actually jerks her hands up to cover her ears against it, her eyes going wide with horror. Morty watches the tension drain out of Rick’s face. He’s pretty sure he can tell the exact moment when Rick stops being Rick and starts being a lifeless corpse. It’s… surreal. After that there’s nothing for them to do but sit there in the ruined living room and try to figure out what happens next. 

“Oh my God,” Summer whispers. “He’s… he’s gone.” 

Morty really has no right to freak out. After all, it’s not like this is the first time he’s ever seen a dead Rick before. It’s just that last time he had his own Rick with him, and, you know, that just sort of made things a little easier to take. 

First things first— trying not to cringe, Morty places two fingertips on Rick’s eyelids and pulls them down to cover those freaky rolled-over eyes. It actually helps a little. If he ignores the blood and the gaping neck wound, it almost looks like Rick just passed out drunk in the middle of the floor. Again. 

“Okay,” Morty says. “We gotta— we gotta move him before Mom and Dad get home.” 

“Move him?” Summer’s voice cracks from the weeping she’s trying to contain. “To where? And do what? You think we can hide this? You think Mom and Dad aren’t gonna notice that Grandpa Rick is _dead?_ ”

Morty frowns. “Probably not for a while, no.” 

Summer considers for a moment. “Okay, that’s fair.” 

“And we only need a while.” 

“A while for what?”

“For, y’know, for Rick to come back.”

They both take a good, long look at the body lying between them. It looks bad. It looks really, really bad. 

“Morty…” Summer bites her lip, conflicted. “Are you sure he’s coming back?”

There’s the million-dollar question. Even knowing vampires are real— even after watching Rick stake Coach Feratu through the chest and reducing him to a cloud of ash— it’s still really hard to accept the idea that this gore-splattered corpse might actually get up and walk around again in a few hours. And of course, that’s only if Rick did indeed manage to get a taste of the other guy, which might not have even happened. So, basically, Morty isn’t sure at all. 

“Of course I’m sure!” he practically screeches. “Now c’mon, we— we— let’s just get him out of the living room.”

They spend several minutes arguing about weight and physics and the dangers of leaving a blood trail through the kitchen. In the end they finally agree to bundle Rick up in several blankets, his feet sticking out one end so they can each grab an ankle and drag him out into the garage. He’s heavier than he looks; Morty would almost believe he’s doing it on purpose, just to watch them struggle. Once they get him out to the cement, they take a minute to catch their breath. That’s when Morty has an idea so great that he’s mad Rick isn’t there to see him have it. 

Two minutes later they’ve got an overjoyed trio of Meeseeks gleefully cleaning the living room. They’ve been specifically instructed to be thorough with all the blood. 

After a prolonged and ultimately futile attempt to figure out how to get down to the subterranean level, they settle on stuffing Rick under his work table and covering the whole thing with a tarp, a scattering of various important-looking gadgets on top in an effort to make it look slightly less blatantly suspicious. It only has to withstand scrutiny for twenty-four hours. 

“He might not wake up tonight,” Morty hedges, his arms hugged tight around his chest. “I don’t— I don’t really— we never really covered vampire gestation in biology, y’know? I-i-it might take a day to… happen.” 

“So, what, we’re just gonna leave him out here and hope Dad doesn’t go digging for his weed-whacker? Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

“I know. You just— you gotta keep him out of here.” 

“Me? What are _you_ gonna be doing?” 

“I’m gonna stay with Rick.” 

Now Summer turns pale. It’s the first step of the plan that has genuinely unnerved her— though whether she’s more concerned for Morty’s safety or his sanity is unclear. 

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

But Morty’s locked in. He’s already crawling under the tarp. 

“I made a promise. You heard it.” 

“Wait!” She really doesn’t want to see him go under there. “Wha— what am I supposed to tell Mom and Dad?”

“Geez, I dunno,” Morty huffs impatiently. “Me and Rick, we— we disappear all the time. What do you usually say?”

She looks away, defeated. “Nothing.” 

“Okay, well good. Keep— keep up the good work.” 

Morty tugs the tarp over his head in lieu of closing a door in her face. He can hear her standing out there, waiting, so he doesn’t make a sound. Conversation over. Rick would approve. Just when he thinks she’s about to come over and yank the tarp up to keep arguing, a third voice cheerfully interrupts. 

“Oh heeeeey in there! I followed the blooood and found a dead _pizza_ guy in the yard! D’you want me to clean that up, tooooo?”

Summer sighs and accepts that this is what’s gonna happen. Her voice turns brisk and businesslike. 

“Okay, Mr. Meeseeks, I need you to stuff that dead pizza guy in the trunk of his pizza delivery car and then I need you to drive that car off a cliff.”

“Ooooo, can do!”

They leave Morty to his vigil. Summer flicks off the garage lights on her way out.


	2. bad moon rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rick wakes up with an appetite, broh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is taken from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2S4GTD-AAw)
> 
> all pairings listed in the header are endgame.

-

-

-

The space under the work table is small and cramped. Morty has no choice but to curl up with Rick’s corpse, still mercifully wrapped in blankets and lying on its side in the fetal position. There’s no room for Morty to lie down so he kneels in the curve of Rick’s abdomen, his head resting on his folded arms, which rest on the hump of Rick’s shoulder. He doesn’t sleep. He just stares at Rick’s feet, sticking out from the bottom of the homemade mummification, the shoes still splattered with blood. Should he take the shoes off? Would that make Rick more comfortable? _Don’t be an idiot, Morty, he’s dead. He doesn’t mind._

He doesn’t give up hoping till sunrise. That’s when he knows Rick won’t come back until at least tonight. That’s when he’s finally able to fall asleep. 

When he wakes up sometime around noon, the corpse has turned completely rigid, the shape under the blankets gone stiff with rigor mortis. He checks his phone and finds seven text messages from Summer, all of them some variation on “???????” Morty texts back: “nothing yet” And then: “hungry. food plz?” Seven minutes later Summer’s in the garage with a full box of Cheez-Its. 

“Best I could do,” she mumbles, stuffing them under the tarp. “You okay?”

“I’m good,” Morty whispers. “Thanks.” 

He spends the rest of the day dozing on and off, munching Cheez-Its, and muttering at Rick, unaccustomed to spending so much time with him in silence. At first he imagines Rick muttering back, but then he figures that that’s proooooobably what Summer meant by this being a bad idea, and he stops. Jerry does end up coming out in the garage and poking around, but Summer valiantly distracts him with a promise to join him for an America’s Next Top Model marathon. She texts Morty during the commercial breaks. Later Morty pours the crackers straight into the box so he can piss into the plastic bag, tying it off at the top like the world’s worst water balloon. Rick would laugh himself sick if he could see it. 

By sunset the Cheez-Its are gone and Morty’s nerves are completely on edge. Soon as it gets dark he pretty much skips straight to the _any-second-now_ mentality, so after about an hour of that he’s basically on the perpetual verge of screaming. He keeps jumping the gun, clutching at the corpse and gasping “Rick?!” every few minutes, more and more frantic every time. It was easy to keep calm last night, it was easy to keep calm all day— but if that sun comes up again and Rick isn’t back yet, then the odds of that ever happening at all just went from “disturbingly unlikely” to “nonexistent.” Morty hasn’t even allowed himself to examine the possibility, but with a matter of hours left on the clock, the possibility is definitely starting to examine him. He can feel it breathing down his neck, this looming absence of Rick, his worst nightmare on the brink of becoming reality. He’s seen a lot of scary shit in the universe, but nothing has ever scared him like this before. 

It happens after midnight. 

Morty’s mind has gone blank, like he imagines a deer must feel right before it gets hit by a car. He got the last “good night and good luck” text from Summer over an hour ago. He’s just staring at the underside of the tarp now, staring but not really seeing it, his fingertips stroking absently at the edge of the outermost blanket. It’s a sofa throw that matched the pillows they already had. Mom bought it on sale. _Rick is dead._

Then the blankets shift underneath him and Morty jumps up so fast that he smashes his head against the bottom of the work table. 

Reeling and dizzy, he instinctively scrambles away, wriggling out from under the tarp and gulping down lungfuls of the sudden wave of fresh, open air that washes over him. For a moment he just lies there on the concrete floor, blinking at the garage ceiling— even at night with the lights out, it’s still high-noon bright after sitting in a tarp-cave for twenty-four hours. Then on cramped, wobbly legs, he hurries to clear off the decoy gadgets on the table so he can drag the tarp away, revealing a big cocoon of blankets with a pair of blood-splattered shoes sticking out one end. 

The shoes are twitching. 

Then the blanket cocoon starts thrashing around, inching out from under the table, scooting across the concrete in Morty’s petrified direction. When it continues to squirm impotently in circles, Morty realizes that Rick can’t untangle himself. 

“H-hang on, Rick, I got it!”

Morty grabs that sofa throw from before and yanks upward as hard as he can, unfurling the top layer of the bundle. The blankets tumble and roll and struggle and then finally burst apart, Rick spilling out onto the floor, wheezing and clawing at the air. As soon as he’s free of his binding he rolls over and props himself up on one elbow, unleashing a fit of coughing so violent that it seems impossible that it doesn’t tear him apart. Finally he produces a mouthful of something that looks like raw tar, thick and black and slimy, which he vomits out into a gruesome puddle. Then he flops onto his back, exhausted. 

“Morty,” he croaks. 

Morty rushes over to him. “Rick!”

Rick clutches blindly at the front of Morty’s shirt. “M-Morty! What— ugggh— what—” He’s trying to breathe, his dead lungs spasming uselessly in his chest. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Morty tries to calm him. “Just— just take it easy.” 

“Hgggh— aaagh— what—” Rick rallies his strength and blurts it out all at once. “What was the top episode?”

Morty blinks. “The… what?”

“The countdown, Morty!” Rick claws at his own chest in agony. “We— ergh— we spent three hours on that marathon! Don’t— don’t tell me you— you pussied out— in the home stretch— you useless turd!” 

“Shut up, Rick!” Morty splutters. “You’re the one who— who pussied out, okay? You died! Way to— y’know— talk about bailing out in the home stretch!”

Rick makes an angry, incoherent sound but declines to pursue the issue. Instead he just keeps sucking air in through his mouth and rattling it back out again, his hands groping uselessly at his ribcage, almost like he expects to find something sitting on his chest, crushing the breath out of him. His face and shirt and lab coat are crusted all over with dark dried blood. The neck wound has healed into a jagged scar. And as he lies there panting like a dog, his mouth hangs open and gives Morty a good, long look at his new fangs. 

It’s the maxillary canines, just like in the movies. Even from where Morty’s sitting they look dagger-sharp, like a set of ivory nails protruding from Rick’s gums, curved slightly for a tidy fit with the row of teeth below. Rick doesn’t even seem aware of them yet, but then he tries to lick his parched lips and ends up stabbing himself in the tongue. 

“Jesus, _fuck!_ ”

He sits up fast, one hand clapped reflexively over his mouth, his eyes bugged wide with dawning comprehension. Morty watches as he gingerly feels around with his fingertips, prodding at the gums, running over the smooth edges of the incisors, and then tracing those elongated canines down to press the pads of his thumbs against the pointy ends. Then he turns to Morty with the biggest, stupidest grin on his face. 

“Ho-hoooooly shit, Morty, check it out! I’m Vampire Riiiiiiick!”

He laughs and attempts to spring triumphantly to his feet, only to collapse right back down to his knees, clutching at his stomach and groaning. Morty crouches beside him, a worried hand on his shoulder. 

“Will you just _cool it_ for a second?” he implores. “You just came back from the dead, Rick, you— you gotta slow down.” 

Then Rick raises his head and looks at him with eyes that are subtly, but distinctly, _changed._ They’re still Rick’s eyes, but there’s something else in there, too, something dark and predatory. And then Rick says:

“I’m hungry, Morty.”

It’s like the temperature in the room drops ten degrees when he says it. Strange, since it’s such a bland, mundane phrase— Morty must’ve heard him say it a thousand times before— but never with such striking, raw _intent._ It makes all the hairs on the back of Morty’s neck stand up. He looks away fast, his arms crossed defensively over his chest. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I was, uh… I thought you might be.” 

He doesn’t really know how to say what needs to be said next, so instead he just kneels there, anxious and sweating. Rick rolls his eyes and sucks in an unnecessary breath for the sole purpose of releasing it in an exasperated sigh. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake, a-a-are we gonna dance all night or are you gonna _feed_ me, Seymour.” 

“Don’t rush me!” Morty snips, then makes him wait an extra-long time just to make a point before he finally thrusts out his arm and says, “Here.” 

Rick recoils with an incredulous sneer. “Your arm, Morty? You want me to drink out of your _arm?_ Wh-wh-what the hell kind of weak shit is that?”

“Uhhhh, the kind that keeps you from starving?” Morty cradles the limb as though covering its ears against any more hurtful words. “I mean, what— what’s wrong with my arm, anyway?”

“It’s your _arm,_ dipshit! This is my _first-ever_ feeding as a _brand-new_ vampire, a-a-and you want me to bite your _arm?_ That’s— that’s like— that’s like giving a guy a brand-new dick and then having him go fuck a fleshlight. I don’t want your fucking fleshlight arm, Morty! I want your _neck._ ” 

He’s already moving in on the last word, his jaws stretched wide, fangs bared. Morty has to lunge backwards to avoid him.

“Well, too bad!” he yelps, hands slapped over his neck protectively. “‘Cause you’re not gonna get it! I’m— I’m doing you a big favor, okay? Don’t make it weird! Y-y-you’re— you’re just gonna— just deal with it!”

Rick snarls at him petulantly, his lip curled back to display his fangs like an angry cat. 

“Really, Morty? You’re— you’re gonna neckblock me? _Really?_ ”

Resolute, Morty again shoves his arm toward him, like a parent shoving a spoonful of mashed peas at a stubborn infant. Then Rick’s gaze starts to wander, across the walls, towards the ceiling, and Morty knows he’s considering the possibility of three other humans in the house. 

“Listen,” he says. “If— if you wanna go in there, I won’t stop you. But i-i-if you try to bite Summer or my mom then I’ll— I’ll— I’m gonna hit you with that snow shovel. So if you wanna bite somebody’s _neck_ , it’ll have to be my dad’s.” 

The full-body shudder that jolts through Rick is as genuine as it is predictable. He sulks for a bit longer, still trying to figure out a way to get what he wants. Then his guts make an awful, ravenous sound, bringing a visible grimace to his face. Eyes narrowed in furious defeat, Rick snatches up Morty’s wrist without another word of protest, drawing it towards his mouth. He pauses when Morty’s fingers cramp up in terrified anticipation. 

“Oh, geez,” Morty whimpers, his eyes squeezed shut. 

He pops them open again in surprise when he feels something cool brush along the underside of his forearm. Rick is nuzzling his nose along the path of the veins showing through the skin, his nostrils flared, his pupils blown out so his gaze has turned black and bottomless. 

“Mmmm,” he murmurs. “I can smell you, Morty. Your blood. Smells good.” 

Morty knots his hands into fists, one still in Rick’s grasp and the other pressed hard against his mouth to keep himself from screaming. He’d been so worried about the pain that it hadn’t even occurred to him to worry about _this,_ about what might happen when Rick actually put his mouth on him. In fact it’s something that he’s spent so long _deliberately not thinking about_ that when it happens it basically fries every remaining synapse in his brain. 

And then Rick bites him. 

It’s like his skin is made of paper— those elongated canines break through the surface with seemingly no effort at all, sinking in until their progress is halted by the bridge of the incisors. Morty can feel them deep inside his arm, under the skin, piercing his veins. 

“ _Mmmf,_ ” he makes a strangled sound of pain, his free hand grabbing helplessly at Rick’s shoulder to brace himself. “Oh, man.” 

Rick’s got both hands latched on Morty’s forearm, holding it up to his mouth like a barbecue rib, his eyes blank and staring while his jaw works up and down like someone chugging a drink through a straw. He sucks hard, rough— Morty grits his teeth as the blood is drained and then dragged out of him, his own pulse unable to keep pace with Rick’s ferocious need, his arm throbbing in protest. 

“Ah— Rick—” He’s getting light-headed. “T-too fast, you’re going too fast, I can’t—”

Rick keeps one hand locked on Morty’s arm, but the other moves out to his clenched fist, his clever fingers wriggling insistently between Morty’s until their hands are intertwined and clasped together. Then he lifts his mouth from the twin punctures, his lips and teeth glistening with fresh blood. 

“Squeeze, Morty,” he commands in a rasp. “Squeeze my hand. L-like this.” 

He palpates Morty’s hand to the rhythm of a heartbeat, _squeeze-squeeze, squeeze-squeeze,_ until Morty echoes weakly, _squeeze-squeeze,_ and sees the blood surge up out of the open wounds in answer. Rick lowers his head immediately, though he’s careful to slot his canines into the holes he’s already made before he goes back to his feed. He doesn’t let go of Morty’s hand and Morty’s glad for it, focusing all his attention on the rhythmic squeezing and not on the way Rick’s shoulders hunch up with feral intensity— or the way Rick’s tongue traces circles on his skin while he drinks. _Squeeze-squeeze._ Rick’s hand is cool to the touch. 

A warm, foggy euphoria starts to settle over Morty like a quilt, dense and heavy. It reminds him of what it’s like to get drunk, his senses gradually thickening, his doubts and fears drifting away in the haze. He’s never been so... connected to Rick before. Rick’s fingers are intertwined with his and Rick’s mouth is on his skin and Rick’s teeth are inside of him and Rick is alive he’s _alive_ and it’s okay everything is going to be okay. 

“Rick,” he says faintly. “It doesn’t… it doesn’t even hurt anymore…”

His body weighs a ton. He slumps against Rick, content. _This isn’t so bad._

Then all at once his consciousness pours back into him like a tidal wave, the world around him exploding with color and light and horrific detail, a violent bitchslap from reality. There’s Rick, sitting back on his heels and swiping the back of his wrist against his mouth. There’s Rick’s hand, clamping a relatively clean towel over Morty’s forearm. The connection is gone. Morty’s arm hurts like it just got stabbed. Twice. 

“Whoa-ho-ho,” Rick chortles at him. “Y-you okay there, Mmmorty? That was— that was crazy, huh? Holy shit. I mean ho-o-oly shit.” 

“Holy shit,” Morty whispers back, at a total loss. 

“Wow, y-y-you’re a— you’re a little trooper, huh, Morty?” Rick’s voice has gone giddy and affectionate, like when he staggers into Morty’s room at three in the morning, drunk as a lord and laughing about what a good kid he is. “You just— you— you stepped right up— when the chips were down. Lemme— l-l-lemme fix that up for ya.” 

He guides Morty’s free hand over to clamp down the bloody towel, giving one last squeeze to indicate that he should keep the pressure on. Then he springs up to his feet with more speed and energy than Morty has ever seen him exhibit in all the time he’s known him. Rick’s always been nimble, but this is on a whole other level— in one silent bound he’s over at his work table, hands flying over the bottles as he rapidly combines several chemicals in one beaker. Morty barely has the time to make the connection between this horrible empty feeling and the absence of Rick’s teeth in his arm when suddenly Rick is right there at his side again, yanking aside the towel and unceremoniously drizzling the contents of an eye dropper over the twin puncture wounds. 

It fucking _burns._

“H’ohhhhh _shit!_ ” Morty shrieks, slapping wildly at the bubbling flesh. 

But a second later and it’s all over. The skin has healed completely. There aren’t even any scars to prove that it happened. Morty blinks, dazed. 

“Awwww, yeah!” Rick cheers at his handiwork. “Hit the sack, Jack!” He gives Morty a congratulatory slap on the shoulder and leaps back to his feet, punching the air in victory. “Vampire Riiiiiick, babyyyyy! Feels good! Yeah!” He pauses, struck with a sudden idea. “Wait, so— a-a-are your parents back from dinner yet? We could— we could really scare the shit out of ‘em, haha. Oh my God, wait’ll they see the living room.”

Morty looks up at him, surprised. “That was last night.” 

“What was last night?”

“ _That_ was.” Morty clambers up to his feet, fighting off wooziness. “This— this is— it’s Saturday night, Rick. O-o-or I guess, y’know, t-technically Sunday morning. Mom and Dad got back from dinner last night.” 

Rick glances around the garage, looking vaguely disoriented. 

“Oh,” he says. One hand absently reaches up to touch the nasty new scar on his throat. “Huh.” 

“I-i-it’s okay,” Morty says hastily. “They don’t know anything. We— we cleaned it all up. Summer told them—” His eyes suddenly bulge wide. “Oh my God, _Summer!_ Rick, we— we gotta go wake her up— sh-sh-she was really worried. We gotta tell her it’s okay.” 

He wobbles towards the door, still light-headed from his massive blood donation. Rick catches his arm to steady him. At first Morty thinks he’ll just boost him into the house, but instead Rick holds him there, the two of them standing together in the silent garage. Rick is staring at the blood-stained tangle of blankets on the floor. 

“Boy, I was—” His voice is oddly strained, like he’s forcing himself to sound nonchalant. “I was gone for a while there, huh?” 

“Don’t sweat it,” Morty says, proud. “I stayed. The whole time. J-just like you said.” 

And Rick looks down at him with those strange new eyes— no, the same old eyes, just with something new in them, something fierce and raw. He reaches out and tousles Morty’s hair. 

“Y-you little creeper. Bet you looooooved snuggling all day.”

“Yeah, right,” Morty flushes. “Let’s just— go wake up Summer.” 

He starts to go, but Rick holds his arm fast, keeping him there. 

“Okay but for real, Morty,” he says. “Wh-what d’you think?”

Releasing his grip, he takes a step back and spreads his arms, displaying his new blood-splattered self, his mouth stretched into an artificial grin to show his fangs. Morty gives him a double thumbs-up.

“I think it’s pretty fucking cool, Rick.” 

Rick’s grin turns genuine and he does a double fist-pump in response. 

“Yeaaaah, bitch! Vampire Riiiiiiick!”

He holds out his hand for a high-five. Morty nails it. Even with such brief contact, it’s still really noticeable; Rick’s hand is cool to the touch.


	3. hollow moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let's find out what summer thinks about this whole situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is taken from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJsAOwWqXf4)
> 
> all pairings listed in the header are endgame.

-

-

-

Summer’s subconscious must have sensed that she really needed a break, because right now she’s in the middle of the best Toby Matthews dream she’s ever had. And really, that’s saying a lot, considering she once had a dream where Toby Matthews got taken, like in the movie _Taken_ , and she was the one to rescue him, Liam-Neeson-from- _Taken_ -style. No, this is a new Toby Matthews dream, and one inspired by recent events— a dream in which he falls on his knees and begs her forgiveness for ever doubting her coolness, and as penance agrees to be her slave for an entire month. 

She’s just waking up to Toby Matthews bringing her breakfast in bed—

—and then she’s actually waking up in her pitch-black bedroom to someone shaking her by the shoulder.

“Summer. Hey, Summer. Wake up.” 

It’s Morty’s voice. Bleary and half-conscious, Summer forces her eyelids open and peers up at him, her voice thick with confusion. 

“Morty? Wha… what do you want?”

“It’s okay,” Morty says. “Everything’s okay.” 

For another second still she has no idea what he’s talking about. Then he takes a step backwards, gestures towards the foot of the bed— and there’s Rick, standing there larger than life, his eyes shining in the dark like a pair of headlights. 

And she remembers. 

“Oh my God!” 

Summer sits up so fast it gives her a head rush. Flinging back the covers, she scrambles across the bed towards him, sitting up on her knees and throwing out her arms to give him a hug. But there’s that inward twitch of Rick’s shoulders, that ew-no-don’t-hug-me-right-now twitch, so she hugs herself instead, sitting back on her heels to give him some space. Rick’s kind of like a cat that way; you learn to read the body language or you get the claws. 

“Oh my God,” she repeats, at a loss. “You’re here. You’re really here.” 

“Yyyyep,” Rick snaps the lapels of his lab coat. “Grandpa’s back, baby. Gonna take a lot more than some weak-ass Nosfe-retard to take me out.” 

“See?” Morty grins. “I told you so.”

Summer stares at Rick. When she blinks she sees him on the floor of the living room, deathly pale and deathly silent, the life literally drained out of him. She blinks again and there he is at the foot of her bed, alive, _alive._ There’s a hot rush of tears welling up inside her; she hugs herself tighter and hopes they won’t notice. Of course, with Rick in the room, she’ll have no such luck. He takes one look at her and recoils in surprise. 

“Wait, are you are _crying?_ ”

She hastily scrubs away with the evidence with the heels of her hands. “What? No!”

“Yeesh, come on,” Rick rolls his eyes. “I was gone for, like, a day. Relax.”

“You weren’t just gone,” Summer mumbles. “You were _dead._ I thought—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Rick cuts her off, holding up both hands in protest. “I was not _dead,_ okay? I was just, y’know— closed for renovations. No big deal.” He smirks at her. “You, uh, you notice anything different?”

Summer doesn’t even think to check his mouth. She’s too riveted by his eerie night-vision stare, his pupils huge and glowing in the dark, reflecting the light like a nocturnal animal.

“Your eyes,” she says, her voice instinctively hushed. 

Rick gives an impatient scoff. “What? No. Lame.” Then he leans towards her, one finger hooked in the corner of his mouth to pull it back and display his teeth. “Ch-check it ouuuut!”

And there they are— a pair of shiny new fangs, two startling intruders jammed right in the center of Rick’s familiar smile. Summer feels her own eyes go wide and stupid with amazement, her hand automatically reaching towards his face without thinking. Rick makes no effort to pull away from her this time. In fact, he actually yawns his mouth open, encouraging her to stick her fingers inside and feel for herself. That’s when Summer gets the uncanny sensation that she’s about to stick her hand into a bear trap. She retracts at the last second, her fingers curled into a protective fist instead. 

“Wow,” she says faintly. “That’s… that’s really…”

Cool? Weird? Scary? Even she doesn’t know how she’s going to finish that sentence. Rick is watching her expectantly, but she has no idea what he wants her to say. It’s times like these that make her jealous of her little brother in ways that she can never quite express. Morty would know exactly what Rick wants to hear. Right now, in this awful, uncomfortable moment, Summer feels just like her mother— like if she gives the wrong answer, Rick will sneer in disappointment and walk right out of her room, out of the house, out of her life. 

“Oh man,” Morty interjects, swaying on his feet. “I don’t— I don’t feel so good.”

And before Rick or Summer even have a chance to say anything, he topples forward and faceplants into the mattress between them.

“Morty!” Summer yelps and grabs onto him; he’s on the very edge of passing out, sluggish and mumbling.

“It’s okay…” he slurs, muffled by her comforter. “I’m okay…”

“Grandpa Rick!” Summer looks up in dismay. “He is _not_ okay! What’s happening?”

“Eh, he’s fine,” Rick shrugs. “Pro-o-obably shouldn’t have run up all those stairs right after giving blood, though.” 

“Giving blood?” Summer repeats, her voice taking on an incredulous edge. “What do you mean, _giving blood?_ ”

Rick immediately throws up his hands in defensive outrage. “Well, damn, Summer, wh-wh-what the hell was I supposed to do, go on a fucking Taco Bell run?”

Resisting the urge to panic, Summer hastily turns Morty’s head from one side to the other, checking his neck for puncture wounds. Rick sees what she’s doing and crosses his arms peevishly, tilting towards a full-blown sulk. 

“Really? _Bitemarks?_ C’mon, gimme a little credit here, I patched him up when we were done.” He leans down and takes Morty’s wrist, hoisting his limp arm up in the air and giving it a wag. “Chemical cauterizer. Good as new.” He lets go so Morty’s hand falls and smacks him in the back of the head, drawing out a muffled “oof!”

“Wait, you bit his arm?” Summer frowns. “Aren’t vampires supposed to bite people in the neck?”

Rick snorts. “Yeah, well, your brother’s a little bitch.” 

“Screw you, Rick,” Morty mumbles into the comforter. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” Summer interrupts, cutting off the endless stream of jabs before it can start. “Morty, we need to get you down to the kitchen, like, right now.” 

Both Morty and Rick respond with the exact same “uhhh, why?” which is actually kind of adorable but also kind of triggers a flash of that inarticulate jealousy again. Summer distracts herself by giving Morty a pat on the back. 

“Um, hello, because you just gave blood? Don’t you need to, I don’t know, have a snack or something? Drink some orange juice?”

“Yeah,” Morty yawns. “I guess. I’m pretty tired.” 

“Well, juice first, then bed, okay?”

“Okay.” 

Summer gives Rick an expectant look. He furrows his brow and snaps, “What?” She gestures at Morty’s crumpled body.

“A little help, maybe? He’s not gonna make it down the stairs.”

“I can do it!” Morty insists.

He shoves himself up from the bed, stands on his own two feet for about two seconds, then wobbles and falls over backwards to the floor. With a roll of his eyes, Rick scoops him up and carries him downstairs like he weighs nothing at all. 

Down in the kitchen, Summer grabs a glass from the cupboard and the orange juice from the fridge, then pours out a generous serving. Meanwhile Rick hooks an ankle behind a chair leg and pulls it out so he can settle Morty down in the seat, even going so far as to push it back in again so Morty can rest his elbows on the table. Summer brings the juice over and sets it down on the placemat in front of him. Dazed, Morty draws the glass towards him and starts to sip from it, his eyes drowsy and half-lidded. Poor kid’s gonna sleep till noon tomorrow. 

Under the glare of the kitchen lights, Summer gets her first good look at the new Rick. Funny, but he doesn’t actually look as different as she expected. Up in her bedroom, shrouded in the dark, there was such an air of the unknown about him, like the weight of his presence had somehow increased. Now, standing in the bright, cheerful kitchen, he looks more or less like his usual self. Obviously his usual self isn’t _usually_ covered in dried blood, but other than that, he’s just a little paler than normal, his features a tiny bit more drawn. There’s definitely something sharp and predatory about the angles of his face; or maybe that’s just an overall side effect of the fangs in his mouth, the tips glinting like bayonet points every time he turns his head. 

“What?” he snaps at her again, and she realizes she’s staring at him. 

“Nothing,” she says, averting her gaze. 

“L-lemme guess— _the eyes._ ”

“Nope,” she manages a nervous laugh. “Definitely the teeth this time.” 

Rick reflexively touches his mouth, his thumb tapping each canine in turn. 

“I gotta see this,” he says, and she follows him as he heads for the nearest bathroom, where he flicks on the lightswitch and peers critically at the mirror. When he fails to react in any way, Summer steps in beside him and sees nothing but her own reflection staring back at the both of them. 

“Oooh, yikes,” she winces. “I forgot about that one.” 

“Yeah,” Rick mutters. “Me too.”

Summer looks up at him and sees his eyes narrowed, his jaw set hard with frustration. He’s unaccustomed to being thwarted by something so crude and basic as a bathroom mirror. She wants to elbow him in the ribs and make a joke to distract him, but she can’t think of anything funny, and besides, she’s close enough now that she finally notices the jagged scar on the side of his neck. 

“Oh my God,” she blurts out.

Rick gives her a quizzical look, tracks her stare to his throat, then reaches up to trace his fingertips over the raised flesh. In an automatic gesture he glances towards the mirror again, only to quickly jerk his head away before he can contemplate the vacant glass for too long. 

“So,” he prompts her instead. “How’s it look?”

“Uh…” Summer squints. “It looks like something tried to rip your throat out with its teeth.”

Rick nods his head in satisfaction. “Nice.” 

He gives his own teeth a smug click and winks at her, then slips out of the bathroom before he can make the mistake of looking at the mirror again. Summer takes one last glance at her reflection, snapping a mental Polaroid picture that she mentally labels with a mental Sharpie marker: _how you looked on the night your grandpa turned into a vampire._ She notices for the first time that she’s wearing a sleep shirt that says _Here Comes the Sun,_ which, given the circumstances, is actually pretty hilarious. 

Back in the kitchen she finds Rick standing over Morty, who has fallen asleep with his head cushioned on the pillow of his folded arms, the empty juice glass carefully placed at the center of the table. Rick stoops down and places a hand on Morty’s back to give him a little shake. 

“O-okay, buddy, c’mon. Let’s go. Up and at ‘em.” 

Morty lifts his head, squints his bleary eyes, and suddenly clutches at the front of Rick’s lab coat, his voice thick with relief. 

“Rick!” he gasps. “You’re okay!”

“Uhhhh, yeah?” Rick smirks uncertainly. “Pre-etty sure we established that already.”

Morty gives a weak, hiccupy laugh. “Oh, good. I thought— I thought it was a dream.” 

He slumps forward and Rick catches him, then shuffles him around in the chair so he can pick him up again. He’s trying to just scoop him up like he did before, but this time Morty twists and squirms in grip, looping his arms around Rick’s neck and hooking his legs around his waist, clinging to the front of him like a koala. Rick heaves a theatrical, exasperated sigh, but he makes no effort to put him down or even rearrange him. He just gives Morty a pat on the back and says, “you’re lucky I have vampire strength or I would drop your little bitch ass so fast.” 

Summer trails behind them as Rick heads back up the stairs, his gait lazy and unhurried— man, that vampire strength must be really legit, considering the fact that he’s got a fourteen year-old kid in his arms and it’s an upwards climb. Over Rick’s shoulder, Morty’s gaze is sleepy and content. When he sees Summer staring at him, he lifts his head just enough to mumble “I told you so” before he drops it back down again, his cheek nestled against Rick’s new scar. There’s that uncomfortable surge of jealousy again— Summer tries to focus on how glad she is to see Rick up and moving around at all. 

Morty’s bedroom door is closed, but that’s never stopped Rick before; he shoulders it open without a break in his stride. It’s clear that he intends to just dump Morty on top of the covers and leave him, so Summer scurries into the room and pulls back the blankets before he gets there, clearing a space. She steps back again so Rick can lean down and deposit his burden. He has to brace one hand on the bed and use the other to disentangle Morty’s limbs from his body, prying him loose. Finally Morty slumps back with a sigh, fast asleep. Summer would have expected Rick to turn and stroll right back out of the room again— but instead he lingers, stooped over, silent and still. 

Taking a step closer, Summer sees that Rick’s hand is still braced on the mattress, his head still bowed even without the pull of Morty’s arms around his neck. He’s got his eyes closed and his jaw clenched. He’s not moving.

His face is pressed against the side of Morty’s throat.

“Grandpa Rick,” Summer says, a hint of alarm in her tone. 

Rick yanks his head up and takes a step backwards. For a second there he actually looks a little alarmed himself. Then, with a dismissive scoff, he turns and strolls right back out of the room again. 

Summer sticks around long enough to take off Morty’s shoes and properly tuck him in under the covers. It’s not like she’s never done it before; there were plenty of nights when their mom was too busy with a bottle of wine to do it herself. Back then Morty’s shoes were fastened with Velcro— it takes her a little more time to undo the laces of his sneakers, using her fingernails to pick at the anxiety-induced intensity of the knots. Geez, this kid is such a mess that even his shoelaces are stressed out. Summer draws the covers up to his chin and hopes, for his sake, that he doesn’t dream. 

She pulls the door shut behind her when she leaves, keeping the handle turned until it’s all the way closed and she can release the catch without fear of the telltale click. She won’t take even the slightest risk of waking up her parents. Honestly, she can barely handle all the shit that’s happening already; the last thing she needs right now is her mom demanding an explanation while her dad freaks the fuck out. Of course the truth is bound to come out sooner or later, but for now, Summer is more than happy to leave that bridge uncrossed. 

She finds Rick down in the kitchen again, rummaging in the back of the overstuffed tupperware cabinet, searching for her mom’s quote-unquote “secret” vodka stash. She goes through phases with the stuff. Most of the time it’s enough to just overdrink wine in socially acceptable situations like dinner or parties, but sometimes the socially acceptable situations just don’t come frequently enough and she day-drinks vodka when she thinks no one’s looking. Rick has to reach all the way to the back of the cupboard, scattering empty tubs and mismatched lids all over the floor, but then he draws his arm back out again with a handle of Absolut clutched in his grip. Summer is surprised that it’s still three-quarters full— must be a fresh bottle. 

“Hey,” he says when he sees her in the doorway. “Y-you wanna get in on this?”

Summer heaves an exhausted sigh. “Ugh, yes, _please._ ”

You know, every once in a while she’s reminded that Rick knows her better than she thinks. He knows— he _remembers_ — that she doesn’t like straight liquor, so without asking he grabs a glass from the cupboard and the orange juice she left on the counter and mixes her a screwdriver. It’s a little on the strong side, one part vodka to only two parts juice, but it’s weirdly sweet how he actually makes an effort to accommodate her. He slides the drink across the counter and she picks it up, hoisting it in his direction for a toast. He grabs the neck of the vodka bottle and brings it up to clink against her glass, then takes a swig while she takes a sip. 

“So,” she remarks, licking the orange juice from her lips. “No mixer for you, huh?”

“Wa-a-ay ahead of you,” he smirks. “I’m— I’m making Bloody Marys.” 

He pats his stomach for emphasis, and Summer is abruptly, unpleasantly reminded that, oh yeah, Rick recently drank his fill of Morty’s blood. It makes her go quiet, which Rick takes to mean that she didn’t get the joke, which only makes him press the point harder. 

“Get it?” he urges, grinning in a way that only draws attention to his fangs. “Bloody Marys? Because I’m— I’m— y’know, I’m a vampire now? A-a-and we’re drinking, uh, we’re drinking vodka? So it’s— it’s a _Bloody_ Mary, hahaaaaa.” 

Summer forces herself to cough out an awkward laugh while Rick busies himself with another swig from the bottle. Grateful for the distraction, she takes another gulp of her own drink, the bright sweetness of the juice chased with the kick of the alcohol, a brisk slap to her senses. It helps her focus. Across the kitchen from her, Rick circles his thumb around the mouth of the vodka bottle, his free hand absentmindedly mapping the dimensions of his new neck scar. Summer clears her throat. 

“Ummm, so,” she nips her drink again to steel her nerves. “Do you know, uh— what kind of vampire are you, anyway?”

Rick makes a dismissive gesture. “Uhhh, the blood-sucking kind?” 

“No, I mean, like,” Summer starts to list out the options on her fingers. “Are you like a _Buffy_ vampire? A _Twilight_ vampire? Are you like an _Interview with the Vampire_ vampire or a _True Blood_ vampire? Or are you—”

“Oh my _Go-o-od,_ ” Rick groans. “Thanks for the trip through the supernatural romance section of Barnes and Noble, _Summer,_ but I think I’ll pass. C’mon, you’re— y-y-you’re really overthinking things, here. You need to relax, go with the flow. I’m Vampire Riiiiiick!”

“Oh, okay, _Vampire Rick_ ,” Summer fires back, flustered in equal measure by both his flippancy and his condescension. “So how much blood do you need to consume in a day, huh? How long can you go between feedings? Are you even able to eat human food?” 

Rick stares at her, his expression intentionally, idiotically blank. As she continues to grill him, he brings the vodka bottle up to his mouth and starts to chug it in slow-motion, taking his sweet time with every massive gulp. It just makes her ranting even more furious. 

“What about silver? What about crosses? And what about, I don’t know, sunlight? Will you burst into flames or start with a sizzle?” She pauses to consider. “Okay, well, that one’s probably a sizzle or else Coach Feratu would’ve had a really hard time holding down a day job.” She waves it away. “But what about that other stuff, Rick? Do you even know _anything_ about what you are now?”

He waits until he’s sure the rant is over before he finally stops chugging. The bottle is three-quarters empty when he puts it down again. 

“Wow, Summer.” He swipes his wrist against his mouth. “Those are all— those are some very important questions to consider. I just have one question for you in return.” He takes a dramatic pause before leaning forward with a smug grin. “So do you write any actual fanfiction, or do you just get in message board fights about whether or not vampires would be physically capable of performing CPR?” 

“Shut up!” Summer snaps, and she gulps down the rest of her drink as a defense mechanism, just to prove that she can. 

“I mean, in the season one finale of _Buffy,_ Angel says he can’t do it because he has no breath.” Rick makes an incredulous face. “But that’s— that’s bullshit, right? Obviously they use breath to speak. A-a-and even if the lungs are dead, fine, that means they’re not discharging CO2, they’re just circulating oxygen. If anything, y’know, vampires should be _better_ at CPR.” 

“Look at you, Grandpa Rick,” Summer says, smiling in spite of herself. “I never would have pegged you for a _Buffy_ fan.” 

“Yeah, well,” Rick scoffs. “I never would have pegged you for a cliche, Summer. A teenage girl with a vampire fixation? Yawn. Was— was it— so was _Twilight_ your gateway drug, o-o-or did it all start in Sunnydale?” 

“I was fourteen!” Summer splutters, defensive. “Everybody gets obsessed with stupid shit when they’re fourteen! Just look at Morty!” After a beat, she sighs and stares down at her empty glass. “It was _Twilight,_ okay. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. It was just— ugh. Never mind.” 

She jumps when Rick plucks the glass out of her hands, thunking it down on the counter and refilling it, half orange juice and half vodka. Then he places it right back in her hands again and offers her a toast with what remains in the bottle.

“The teenage mind is its own worst enemy,” he declares, then breaks into a fanged grin. “Haha, didja— didja see what I did there? That was, y’know— th-th-that was the, uh, the moral of the story, r-remember? At the end of, uh— at the end of the last— the last adventure? That was the thing I said, a-at the end. And now I just— that was— that was a solid callback, right there. _Solid._ ”

“Solid,” Summer agrees, and they drink together. 

They don’t stop until the bottle’s empty and Summer’s glass is drained to the dregs. She sways, dizzy, one hand pressed to her forehead in an effort to keep it from spinning. Meanwhile Rick ambles over to the kitchen sink, sticks the empty vodka bottle under the faucet, and switches on the tap to refill it to the appropriately deceptive level. _What an asshole._ Mom will be pissed, and Rick won’t care. He doesn’t care. 

“Rick,” Summer blurts out. “I need to say something.” 

He holds up one finger for silence, his eyes glued to the rising level in the bottle. At the perfect moment, he twists the tap off again, the liquid settling right where he wants it. Then he screws the cap back on and towels the whole thing dry. 

“Okay,” he says, crouching on the floor to put the bottle back where he found it. “Shoot.” 

“Look, um,” Summer picks at her fingernails, nervous beyond all reason. “I know you don’t care about my opinion or anything, but…” She takes a deep breath and just rushes through it. “I don’t think you should drink blood from Morty anymore. If you need to drink from someone, it should be me.” 

And the hilarious truth is: she really _does_ mean it with the best intentions. She really _does_ think Morty is too young for this crazy shit, and she really _does_ think it’s her responsibility, as the older sibling, to bear this burden. For one stupid, brave moment, it doesn’t even occur to her that her motivations might be construed as anything other than that. 

Then Rick laughs.

“Uh oh,” he says, standing up and kicking the tupperware cupboard shut. “What’s the matter, Summer? Jealous?”

It’s like he can _literally_ see right through her. Summer feels her whole face go red-hot with embarrassment, caught in a lie that she didn’t even realize she was telling. Flustered, she recoils with an exaggerated scoff of annoyance, rolling her eyes so she doesn’t have to look at him. 

“Ugh! You wish!” 

“Look, I get it,” Rick shrugs. “You finally get a real live vampire in the house and then your dopey little bro gets all the action. That’s gotta suck.” His eyes light up in amusement. “And not in the way you want it to, am I right? Haha!”

“Gross, Grandpa,” Summer huffs, completely mortified by how not-gross it is. “It’s not like that. I just thought— I mean, I’m the oldest, right? I’m just trying to look out for Morty.”

“Uh huh,” Rick crosses his arms and leans back against the counter. “Su-u-ure you are. Look, Summer, anyone who can name four different vampire franchises off the top of their head is gonna have a hard time convincing me they’re not interested. I mean, don’t— don’t tell me that fourteen year-old you wouldn’t have _jumped_ at the chance.” 

He looks so goddamn pleased with himself that Summer almost blurts out the truth, just to prove him wrong, just to throw him off-balance for _once._ Actually she was pretty surprised that he even bought her _Twilight_ bluff in the first place. It’s an easy lie to believe, she guesses. But see, the thing is, fourteen year-old Summer never gave a crap about vampires. That particular obsession actually sprang up a little more… recently. 

Like, say, right around the time Rick moved in. 

Of course, Summer would never admit to the correlation out loud. It just so happens that right around that time she suddenly developed an intense fixation on stories about young girls attracting the attention of someone much older and more dangerous than anything they’d ever known before. You know, a totally normal reaction to having your grandfather move into your garage. Thank God for the supernatural romance section at Barnes and Noble— with enough books and movies and HBO original series, she’s been able to do a pretty good job of distracting herself from the disconcerting source of the obsession. It’s like she said: take all the bad thoughts and shove them in the back. Build a wall. Watch _Buffy._ Don’t think about it. 

The only problem is it’s kind of hard _not_ to think about it when the _actual reason_ for her vampire obsession has now been transformed into an _actual vampire._ It’s hard to do anything but stand there, her fists clenched and her eyes averted, still scrambling for a comeback and drawing a total blank. Damn, that vodka really isn’t doing her any favors. If Rick keeps giving her a hard time then she’s definitely gonna end up saying something she’ll regret. 

Fortunately Rick’s attention span can’t be bothered right now. When his last barb fails to draw out a big reaction that might amuse him, he just gives an annoyed snort and waves away her concern like it’s a tired old joke he’s heard a million times before. 

“Ehhh, forget it,” he says. “I’m just gonna make my own synthetic blood in the garage. Eliminate the human element. Who needs ‘em, right? Better— better living through science, and all that.”

“Oh.” Summer relaxes her fists. She’s even more disappointed than she thought she would be. Like, _really_ disappointed. “Well, great, then. That’s settled.” 

“Yuuup.” Rick fires a pair of finger guns at her. “Sorry to burst your bubble. I-I-I know you and Morty couldn’t wa-a-ait to turn this into a popularity contest.”

“Whatever,” Summer bristles, fighting to conceal her vodka-fueled teenage anguish. “If you’re gonna be an asshole about it, then— then I’m going back to bed.” 

As far as having the last word goes it’s not even remotely close to satisfying, but at this point she just wants to escape with one flimsy scrap of her dignity intact. Turning on her heel, she wobbles only the tiniest bit before she finds her footing and marches right out of the kitchen, through the dining room, every ounce of willpower focused on reaching the stairs and not looking back. By the time her foot touches the first step she’s already wishing that she’d stayed in the kitchen with Rick, but now it’s too late and she’s got to stick the landing or she’ll look like an even bigger idiot than she already does. 

Her legs are like a pair of musical saws, boinging and sproinging with every lurching step upwards, her hand white-knuckled on the railing the whole way. Reaching the second floor is an achievement akin to scaling Everest, but somehow she makes it— she got that stubborn, idiotic pride from her mother, one hundred percent. At the top of the stairs she stops to reorient herself, and that’s when she hears the _psssst!_ from down below. 

Turning around, she sees Rick’s lanky silhouette at the foot of the stairs, nothing more than a dark shadow with eyes like a pair of headlights. 

“Hey, too bad that whole _noble sacrifice_ scheme didn’t work out,” he smirks. “I guess if you want me to bite you, y-you’re just gonna have to ask.”

He winks at her, one spotlight eye blinking off and on again in the unlit front hallway. Summer’s stomach isn’t just doing backflips, it’s doing an entire Olympic floor routine as she wrinkles her nose and sticks out her tongue in an elaborate pantomime of disgust. 

“Yuck. Good night, Grandpa.” 

“Sweet dreams,” Rick purrs, like he already knows she’ll see him there.

Summer has to turn around and bolt into her room before she bolts back down the stairs by mistake. 

Once she’s locked safely inside, she crawls under the covers and lays there staring at the ceiling, her head still swimming from the vodka and her face still burning with about fifty different shades of frustration. Great. This is fucking great. Rick is a vampire. Of _course_ Rick is a vampire. As if her life wasn’t already unfair _enough._

Sometimes she has to wonder if this isn’t all the result of some awful cosmic karma, the penance for being the unwilling duct tape that holds together the most toxic marriage in the universe. Sure, on the one hand, the universe is so vast and unfeeling that it could hardly be bothered with something so pointless and insignificant. On the other hand, it really is _so_ much more gratifying to blame it all on her parents. 

Whatever the case may be, there’s definitely one thing Summer knows for sure—

She’s not going to be having any more Toby Matthews dreams for a while.


End file.
